Flat-rate mobile phone tariffs at O2: Telefónica kicks out frequent surfers

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O2 business: Mobile communications should not replace the fixed network connection

Photo: Christoph Hardt / Future Image / IMAGO

Christian M. would like to keep his Unlimited mobile phone tariff at O2. The family man lives in the district of Soest in North Rhine-Westphalia, just under 600 meters from a barely frequented mobile phone mast. This is enough for an average download speed of around 200 megabits per second. The contract costs 45 euros a month for three SIM cards, one of which is in a router connected to an antenna on the roof.

The household consumes around one terabyte per month in this way. Among other things, this data volume is due to the fact that the children play video games and watch films on Netflix and video clips on YouTube.

But the cheap flat rate will soon come to an end. Telefónica has sent the 50-year-old a notice of termination. It has become the undoing of the business economist that he uses his mobile phone tariff as a DSL replacement. "I was quite surprised about the dismissal," says M. in an interview with SPIEGEL. The problem is that he lives in the countryside, where there are hardly any cheap alternatives. "The DSL line brings just 6 megabits per second, it doesn't get any faster than that." Although he could book a fiber optic connection, it costs about 300 euros a month at his address. "That's too much for me," says M.

»Unlimited« is not limitless

It is not an isolated case: According to a report by the industry portal "Teltarif", Telefónica has informed 3200 O2 users that their mobile phone contracts will be terminated at the end of the minimum term. Affected are users of the so-called Unlimited tariffs, which promise unlimited data volume for smartphones and tablets in the mobile network. This is quite an unusual step. Mobile phone providers usually want to keep customers.

Not so Telefónica – the company wants to get rid of frequent surfers as quickly as possible. At the request of SPIEGEL, the group announced: "In our industry, it happens again and again that mobile phone contracts are terminated by the provider within the existing notice periods," says a spokesman. "In view of our almost 43 million mobile customers, we are talking about very few cancellations in the low four-digit range per year." The company affirms that the term of the contract has been adhered to for all parties concerned.

A BGH ruling with consequences

Those affected cannot legally defend themselves against the expulsion, says Thomas Bradler of the consumer advice center of North Rhine-Westphalia in an interview with SPIEGEL. "That's perfectly fine from a legal point of view." Following the minimum term, not only consumers, but also providers are allowed to terminate the contracts. "It's legal, but of course it's highly customer-unfriendly," explains Bradler.

Telefónica did not want to comment on the reasons. But consumer advocate Bradler assumes that the wave of layoffs is related to a ruling by the Federal Court of Justice. A few weeks ago, the judges overturned a paragraph in Telefónica's terms of use that prohibits the use of mobile phone SIM cards in routers with a power connection. The rule is therefore invalid. "There has long been a free choice of end device, and the company must not prohibit that," says Thomas Bradler.

Apparently, extreme surfers with mobile routers are now to be sorted out with notices. "I can imagine that it is relatively easy to see whether a SIM card is being operated in the router," says the legal expert. »The amount of data is very different from classic surfing on a mobile phone.« After all, numerous devices such as televisions, computers, tablets and game consoles are connected to the home network and suck on the data volume. In some cases, this becomes too colorful for the telephone company. Even the most expensive Unlimited contract should at most be used to launch "mobile hotspots for multiple devices," according to the O2 website.

O2 flat rates remain taboo for customers who have been kicked out

Anyone who has overstretched the flat rate is now said to be on a red list. According to the "Teltarif" report, new O2 mobile phone contracts with unlimited data usage will also be taboo for ex-mobile phone customers in the future. Instead, DSL and fiber optic contracts would be made palatable. "Customers have to live with it," says Bradler. "Providers are allowed to decide for themselves with whom they conclude contracts and with whom they do not."

Telefónica offers three different tariffs with unlimited data volume. Prices for new customers range from 33 to 63 euros per month. The price difference is made up of the maximum surfing speeds of 3 to a maximum of 500 megabits per second. This also shows why some consumers prefer to put a mobile router in their home rather than book a landline contract: The prices hardly differ and DSL can hardly keep up with the speed with up to 250 megabits per second.

More on the subject

• Telecommunications debacle: Germany, eternally dead zoneBy Benedikt Müller-Arnold and Marcel Rosenbach

• Start-up discounts, hardware deals, family deals: How you can really save on mobile phone tariffsBy Markus Böhm

• Dubious door-to-door sales: These are the tricks of the fibre optic representativesBy Torsten Kleinz, Markus Böhm and Jörg Breithut

If you live in remote areas, you may be able to make a better deal with Internet via cell towers. On the one hand, there are no costs for the deductible for the house connection. In addition, 5G mobile phone masts are being expanded so quickly that around 80 percent of the area in Germany is already covered with fast Internet. Fiber-optic expansion continues to be sluggish: three-quarters of German households are still waiting for a connection. However, all mobile phone users have to share the data traffic of a radio cell. If too many people try to load data over cellular networks, data transmission will break down for everyone.